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Chapter 3 - Notions of Voice in The History of Mary Prince

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2025

By
Dyanne K. Martin
Edited by
Nicole N. Aljoe
Nicole N. Aljoe
Affiliation:
Northeastern University, Boston
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Summary

Critics often debate the authenticity of authorial voice in The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave Narrative, Related by Herself. They argue that external influences and pressures either obscure or completely override Prince’s agency as the first-person narrator. However, a close analysis of the text reveals distinct hallmarks of Prince’s personal voice in her autobiography. As many valences of that personal voice are manifested, Prince illuminates across her narrative not only the historical experience of the enslaved but also the power of testimony to change the surrounding culture.

Keywords

slaveryMary Princeidentity
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Mary Prince , pp. 52 - 68
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

Works Cited

Ferguson, Moira. “Introduction.” The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself. University of Michigan Press, 1997, pp. 1–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paquet, Sandra Pouchet. “The Heartbeat of a West Indian Slave: The History of Mary Prince.” African American Review, vol. 26, no. 1, 1992, pp. 131–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prince, Mary. The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself. Edited by Ferguson, Moira, University of Michigan Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Rauwerda, Antje M. “Naming, Agency, and ‘A Tissue of Falsehoods’ in The History of Mary Prince.” Victorian Literature and Culture, vol. 29, no. 2, 2001, pp. 397–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Further Reading

Aljoe, Nicole N. Creole Testimonies: Slave Narratives from the British West Indies, 1709–1838. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banner, Rachel. “Surface and Stasis: Re-reading Slave Narrative via The History of Mary Prince.” Callaloo, vol. 36, no. 2, 2013, pp. 298–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, Moira. Subject to Others: British Women Writers and Colonial Slavery, 1670–1834. Routledge, 1992.Google Scholar
Hanley, Ryan. Beyond Slavery and Abolition: Black British Writing, c. 1770–1830. Cambridge University Press, 2019.Google Scholar
McBride, Dwight A. Impossible Witnesses: Truth, Abolitionism, and Slave Testimony. New York University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Pyne-Timothy, Helen, editor. The Woman, the Writer & Caribbean Society: Essays on Literature and Culture. Center for African American Studies, 1998.Google Scholar
Sensbach, Jon F. A Separate Canaan: The Making of an Afro-Moravian World in North Carolina, 1763–1840. University of North Carolina Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Thomas, Helen. Romanticism and Slave Narratives: Transatlantic Testimonies. Cambridge Studies in Romanticism, Cambridge University Press, 2000.Google Scholar

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